Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) on Wednesday
sought permission for its clients’ customer care and support centres to
make outgoing calls and send text messages to improve customer service.
The request was sent to the Ministry of
Information and Communications (MIC) for telephone numbers with the
prefix 1800 and 1900, which are only allowed to take inbound calls from
customers.
Most of VNPT’s clients, which subscribe to
telephone numbers with the prefix 1800 and 1900, complained about the
need for outgoing calls and text messages to enable them to better serve
their customers. They include banks, financial companies and other
service enterprises.
Phan Hong Hai, head of MIC’s telecommunications
department, said outgoing calls and text messages were not allowed on
telephone numbers with the prefix 1800 and 1900 to prevent spam calls
and messages.
“VNPT must check the current operations of its
1800 and 1900 clients and report these to the MIC before seeking
approval,” he added.
Fraudulent calls and text messages have become a
headache for both mobile phone users and network operators over the past
few years.
An estimated 9.8 million spam text messages are
sent to Vietnamese mobile phone users every day, and this helps the
network operators rake in an enormous VND3 billion (US$143,000) a day
and $4.3 million a month, a recent report of Internet security company
Bkav Corporation revealed.
While the unwanted messages annoy recipients,
network operators refuse to tighten management to discourage spammers
and even launched services that make it easy for spammers to bombard
mobile phone users with spam messages.
VNS/VNN